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US-Russia

Proposed Joint Data Exchange Center

A Historical Compilation

by Chuck Thornton

September 2009

DO NOTE CITE OR DISSEMINATE WITHOUT ORIGINATOR’S PERMISSION.

The purpose of this compilation is to provide a historical context to the announcements from the
July 2009 Obama-Medvedev summit regarding the proposed JDEC, and to offer some insights into
the internal DoD activities surrounding earlier JDEC initiatives.

Included in this compilation, in chronological order,are several exchanges of correspondence


followed by relevant news articles. Not all of the material referenced in the correspondence is
included here, nor is all of the correspondence, due to the material’s sensitive nature.

If you request permission to cite this material, and I agree, I ask that you attach a “... provided
by Charles L. Thornton, University of Maryland” notation to each citation.

NOTE: “ZZZ@____” indicates personal name is withheld, but identifies his/her organization.

From: Charles L. Thornton [mailto:clt@wam.umd.edu]


Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 1:10 PM
To: ZZZ@UMD; ZZZ@UMD
Subject: JDEC Implementation - Current Status

ZZZ@UMD asked that I write a short memo outlining the current status of DoD's support to JDEC.

Summary

As you will see below, ZZZ@DTRAand the DTRA leadership are well aware of the JDEC program.
Although DoDis using CTR expertise, there are no Nunn-Lugar funds associate with JDEC. More
importantly, it appears that there was a conscious decision NOT to make this a CTR project.
Despite presidential (previous) and senior DoD (current) expressed interest, you may want to
consider OSD, vice DTRA or Russia, as the target to pressure the issue.

Discussion
The US Air Force approached DTRA to assist in the implementation of JDEC due to DTRA's
expertise in Russia. The USAF responsible office, Electronic Systems Command / Detachment 5 /
Peterson AFB, CO, has built early warning systems in Israel and Japan and provides software
upgrades for early launch detection facilities. DTRA agreed to provide (1) a linguist on temporary
duty in the Defense Threat Reduction Office (DTROM) at the US Embassy in Moscow and (2) an
international project manager. The linguist would act as the Embassy focal point for JDEC
implementation, including in-country coordination and similar action officer duties. The project
manager was drawn from the CTR team, based in Washington, to provide experienced support
for design, renovation, and construction of the JDEC facility.

All funding for JDEC comes from the Air Force. No CTR funds are involved (salaries for the linguist
and project manager are not counted against CTR budget lines). The USAF transfers its funds to
DTRA by MIPR - military interdepartmental purchase request. Currently, funds are in place for
facility design and staff support(travel, per diem) only. Renovation and construction funds may
be transferred to DTRA later as/if the project progresses (see below). The USAF plans to buy and
install the equipment itself (it will be GFE - government furnished equipment) without DTRA
support, once the building is ready. For DTRA, the Air Force continues to ensure that sufficient
funding is available (e.g., it pulled 2000 funds and replaced it with 2001 funds so that spending
through September 2002 may continue.)

At the outset, the DTRA project manager was given the nearly impossible task of getting the
facility up and running within months. He was promised high-level support to accomplish this
mission. The linguist position at DTROM is currently unfilled; new arrival date unknown.

However, to date no DoD-MOD implementing agreement has been reached on JDEC. One of the
parties (I don't know which - US or Russian) did not want to place this effort under the CTR
umbrella agreement. The last task AmbCollins did in early July before departing his post was to
contact the Russians in order to try to move the process forward. Russia's response implied that
an agreement on taxes could be reached, but that liability issues seemed more difficult. The
Russians stated that they were willing to meet in September for further discussions.

So, the action now appears to be on the US side. DoDhas not responded to MOD's offer to meet.
In addition, DoDis somewhere in the midst of transferring management of the project from a joint
OSD-Policy/Joint Staff (J-38) team to USSPACECOM. Russia seems to still want the facility, but the
effort is in limbo on the US side.

DTRA hired Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group to begin design work on the JDEC facility.
It has now gone as far as it can in the US; to proceed it must begin to work in Russia itself (visit
the proposed building; speak with Russian counterparts; etc.) However, until DoDand MOD sign
an agreement no work may commence in Russia. There is no word on a possible negotiations
trip.
One additional note: DEPSECDEF Wolfowitz, during his in-briefings upon entering duty, noted
that he wanted to find a way ahead on JDEC. Still little action has been taken.

Assessment

In my assessment, JDEC falls outside the usual CTR dismantlement/security types of programs.
However, given DoD's relationships with the various elements within MOD and MFA under the
CTR program, and recognizing DoD's experience with building/renovation facilities and installing
high-tech equipment, this certainly seems like a viable "threat reduction" activity that could be
implemented under the existing CTR umbrella agreement.

DTRA, though, would not be able to make any of this happen. The targets must be OSD Policy
and perhaps the Joint Staff office overseeing the Air Force policy makers. In any case, the delays
seem to be on the US, not Russian, side.

I have attached here several news articles on the center, FYI. Please let me know if there are
details on which you would like me to expand.

From: ZZZ@CONTRACTOR

Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 2:39 PM

To: ZZZ@CONTRACTOR; ZZZ@CONTRACTOR; ZZZ@DTRA

Cc: 'clt@wam.umd.edu'; ZZZ@CONTRACTOR; ZZZ@DTRA

Subject: RE: JDEC Implementation - Current Status

Excellent summary by Chuck Thornton. A couple of additions from my files. This is good data
from the point I left the scene.

Parsons was given the task of providing an evaluation of the requirements for the JDEC Building.
The design contract had not been awarded by the time I left and doubt that it has thus far. Need
to check on that part. Several reasons for delay. As Chuck mentioned, there is no agreement
between the parties. US wants exception from taxes and indemnified of any liability. There were
other renovation questions that had to be answered and site inspection of the proposed structure
had to be performed.

While ZZZ@DTRA was here, we met with the reps from ESC/Det. 5 and mentioned that they
could use the CTRIC contract vehicle for the construction, thus eliminating a layer of
management, CTR. When we started this effort, CTRIC was not in-place. Our experience with
them also indicated that ESC was reluctant to relinquish project management prerogatives to
CTR. Hunter did not push CTRIC very hard as ZZZ@DTRA had already offered CTR's assistance.
However, this is an acquisition strategy that merits revisiting. CTR can still assist ESC and offer
them the benefit of its experience contracting in Russia. However, I don't see the value added to
the project by interjecting ourselves between Det. 5 and the contractor, in particular since ESC
has been reluctant to give up their p.m. prerogatives.

From: Charles L. Thornton [mailto:clt@wam.umd.edu]


Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 2:51 PM
To: ZZZ@UMD; ZZZ@UMD
Subject: SEW/JDEC Update

ZZZ@UMD asked me to look into the current situation with SEW/JDEC following the one-line
statement that came out of the recent Bush-Putin summit. Essentially, there has been no
progress from the perspective of the US implementers. That is, the US offices within DoD that
would manage the project - DTRA and the Air Force - are still awaiting Russian decisions on
procedures, taxation exemptions, etc.

Commentary. It seems to me that the JDEC project is now destined for the status of many other
US-RF agreements: for show and talk, but not for real action. One example in particular is the
1994 WSSX Agreement (attached). This agreement excited the DoDoffices that manage CTR at
the time, as it appeared to offer the vehicle DoD and MOD were seeking that would allow the
Russians to share sensitive warhead storage and transportation information. This information is
necessary for DoDto provide certain critical nuclear warhead security support to MOD under the
CTR program. However, by the late 1990s, the WSSX program had become nothing more than
politicized chatter with no real substance. It was the MOD officers, in fact, who recommended
that CTR stay clear of WSSX in order to prevent the CTR support from getting even more bogged
down.

The one key difference with SEW/JDEC is that the US Embassy in Moscow has received approval
for up to 16 JDEC billets at an FY02 annual cost of $1,371,900 (see Defense Threat Reduction
Office weekly report attached). However, this approval came in mid-CY01 and I would be
surprised if the Embassy keeps those slots open indefinitely (the bullets in the attached DTROM
report, by the way, has remained unchanged for months).

On the one hand, it appears that any real progress on this program will have to be driven by the
Russian side - the decision points mentioned above are the Russians'. On the other hand, it has
been my experience that progress will not come without US management. On other cooperative
projects I've observed, USG program managers end up acting as integration managers within the
Russian government in order to coordinate and facilitate the Russian decision-making process. In
this case, there does not appear to be anyone in a high enough position within OSD or the USAF
to press for the project and steer it through the Russian bureaucracy.

Without senior US leadership in this case, I predict that SEW/JDEC will continue to exist for the
purpose of providing political statements that claim progress on threat reduction cooperation,
but provide no substantive results. -CLT

From: ZZZ@UMD
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 12:35 PM
To: Chuck Thornton
Cc: ZZZ@UMD
Subject: Current status of JDEC

HI Chuck – Do you know whether this currently stands? If I remember correctly, you sent around
an optimistic article a few months ago, but it still seemed to reflect a post-summit glow more
than concrete accomplishments. ZZZ

From: Charles L. Thornton [mailto:clt@umd.edu]


Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 4:47 PM
To: ZZZ@UMD
Cc: ZZZ@UMD
Subject: RE: Current status of JDEC

I haven't followed it too closely over the past year. However, the reporting I've collected is a
good news/bad news story. The JDEC itself, as you can see from the attached report, was
scheduled to actually open in early 2004. I've seen no reporting since the attached.

I had heard a rumor that the joint early warning project was discussed at the summit last spring,
but found no media reporting in either English or Russian. Also, the Defense Threat Reduction
Office in the US Embassy, which was originally coordinating the effort, has not been involved.

The other good/bad news to the story is that while Russia has actually opened one or two of its
own radar sites, other facilities and satellite assets have been crashing and burning - literally. (I
can send you articles if interested.)

So, while we may be optimistic that a JDEC might soon open, the reality of the situation may not
be improving.

From: Charles L. Thornton [mailto:charles.thornton@saic.com]


Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 10:28 AM
To: ZZZ@DTRA; ZZZ@DTRA; ZZZ@DTRA; ZZZ@OSD
Subject: FW: Russia, US To Launch Early Warning System in 2004
Greetings all,

Based on the exchanges of emails we had last August on this subject, I assume that the news
item below was/is bogus. Does this continue to be true? That is, there has not been any real
work conducted on the JDEC project thus far, correct - no contracts, no construction work, etc.?
Has there been any progress on the policy front? Does the US Air Force still have the funds for
this project (for example, have the funds expired)?

Thanks much for any updates you can provide.

I've attached a couple of recent articles FYI.

From: ZZZ@CONTRACTOR
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 10:55 AM
To: Thornton, Charles; ZZZ@DTRA; ZZZ@DTRA; ZZZ@CONTRACTOR
Subject: RE: Russia, US To Launch Early Warning System in 2004

Chuck,

Last work I did on the JDEC was more than a year ago. At that time the US had not been able to
sign an Agreement. If memory serves me right, the sticking issue was "indemnity" of US
contractor. Although there was a USAF preliminary design and construction plan, we had not sat
with the Russians to agree in detail - as of a year ago.

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U.S. Tells OSCE of Missile Launch Notification Agreement

(U.S.-Russia agreement will promote mutual confidence)

U.S. Ambassador David Johnson described for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe's (OSCE) Permanent Council a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on missile launch
notifications signed by the United States and Russia last December that will promote mutual
confidence and strengthen international security.
The agreement provides for a new and more comprehensive system of pre- and post-launch
notifications for both ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles, said Johnson, the U.S.
permanent representative to the OSCE, speaking in Vienna February 15.

It also provides for notifications when forcing satellites out of orbit and when conducting
experiments in space that could adversely affect the operation of early warning radars.

Once it is implemented bilaterally, the system will be open to participation by other interested
states, he said.

Following is a transcript of Johnson's statement:

(begin transcript)

United States Mission to the OSCE

STATEMENT ON MISSILE LAUNCH NOTIFICATIONS AGREEMENT Delivered by Ambassador David T.


Johnson to the Permanent Council, Vienna

February 15, 2001

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to make a statement on behalf of the United States of America and the Russian
Federation.

I am pleased to inform the Permanent Council, on behalf of myself and Ambassador Belous, that
on December 16 our Foreign Ministers signed in Brussels a bilateral Memorandum of
Understanding on Notifications of Missile Launches.

This agreement will strengthen strategic stability by establishing a new and more comprehensive
system of pre- and post-launch notifications for both ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles.
It also provides for notifications when forcing satellites out of orbit and when conducting
experiments in space that could adversely affect the operation of early warning radars.
This new agreement builds upon the June 2000 agreement between the Russian Federation and
the United States to establish in Moscow a joint warning center for the exchange of early warning
information on missile launches. Together, these two initiatives will strengthen strategic stability
by substantially reducing the risk of experiencing false ballistic missile attack warnings and by
promoting mutual confidence.

The Russian Federation and the United States welcome the opportunity to work together through
this agreement. Our bilateral cooperation demonstrates our shared commitment to
strengthening international security.

Once it is implemented bilaterally, we intend to open the missile launch notification system to
participation by other interested states. Today, we have circulated the full text of this agreement
in both English and Russian. Thank you.

(end transcript)

************************************************************

The Arms Control website: Disarmament, De-Mining CTBT and

other issues: http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/arms/

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Washington Post

June 13, 2001

[for personal use only]

Nuclear 'Milestone' Divides U.S., Russia

Failure to Construct Joint Warning Center Suggests Bigger Problems on

Missile Defense

By Peter Baker

Washington Post Foreign Service

MOSCOW -- To prevent false alarms about missile launches with catastrophic consequences, the
United States and Russia decided to build a joint nuclear early warning center to share
information. They liked the idea so much that they announced it twice.
Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin first unveiled the plan to "avert nuclear war by mistake," as Clinton
put it, in September 1998. When Clinton came back here in June 2000 the two countries pulled
out the news release again. "A milestone in enhancing strategic security," said Yeltsin's
successor, Vladimir Putin.

Yet now, as the presidents of Russia and the United States prepare for another summit, this
"milestone" remains nothing more than an abandoned kindergarten building surrounded by
overgrown shrubbery on the outskirts of Moscow. Planning for the early warning center has
ground to a halt, stymied by conflicting priorities, geopolitics and legal issues.

After Clinton and Yeltsin first agreed to the plan, the war in Kosovo the following spring soured
Russia on the West and everything was put on hold for nearly a year. After relations thawed a bit,
Clinton and Putin signed a memorandum of understanding last June to put it back on track.

But it became mired in details -- Russians said their law required Americans to pay taxes on the
equipment brought into the country and to assume liability for construction, while the U.S. side
did not want to set a precedent that would affect larger aid programs. More important, the
project lost momentum in the lame-duck days of the Clinton administration and has remained
frozen pending the Bush team's review of its Russia policy. The two sides have not met for
months.

The three-year odyssey of the early warning center that wasn't offers a lesson in how good
intentions can go awry when it comes to relations between the world's two major nuclear
powers. The failure to establish the center underscores the limitations of international summitry
and the difficulty of turning rhetoric into reality.

It also serves up a cautionary tale for Washington at a time when the administration of Clinton's
successor, President Bush, is talking about ways to cooperate with Moscow in building a ballistic
missile shield. Bush and Putin will meet for the first time in Slovenia Saturday with missile
defense at the top of the agenda. But if the two countries cannot find a way to jointly build an $8
million center considered non-controversial by both sides, collaboration on a hotly disputed $100
billion missile defense system promises to be far more problematic.

"This shows very clearly that if it's just a political ploy to make everybody look better, then
nobody will move it forward," said Pavel Podvig, a researcher at the Center for Arms Control,
Energy and Environmental Studies in Moscow. "We are no longer in that mode where anything
cooperative is such a great idea that all the bureaucracies would just clear away."
Perhaps more ominously, in the view of arms control specialists, the stalemate over the early
warning center leaves unaddressed a problem with potentially disastrous ramifications: Russia's
huge blind spots in detecting missile launches. A mistaken warning could lead Russian leaders to
launch their own missiles and trigger an unintended nuclear conflagration.

As it was, the joint warning center was seen by experts such as Podvig as an inadequate
response to a serious problem, one that would be useful mostly if it served as a first step to a
more meaningful solution. Critics asked whether Russians would really trust American data
showing that the United States was not attacking.

Theodore Postol, a national security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said
that initially he considered the joint plan not serious enough, but at least "a good thing" in the
context of a broader approach to the issue. Now, given the result, he has come to see it as
nothing more than a propaganda tool by the Americans.

"This has just been a smoke screen to look like they're doing something when they're not," Postol
said. "I really lay this at the feet of the Americans because they have the resources. The Russians
don't, and to turn around and blame this on the Russians is really disingenuous."

The notion of shared early warning information arose shortly after the end of the Cold War. As far
back as February 1992, just weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. and Russian
officials began discussing the creation of a center where each side would have access to data
from the other.

The danger of misunderstanding became vividly evident in 1995 when Russian military officials
briefly mistook the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket for a U.S. intercontinental ballistic
missile. Yeltsin was brought his black suitcase known as the "nuclear football" to make a decision
about whether to retaliate, but the Russians came to conclude that they were not under attack.

The potential for trouble has only intensified since then with the deterioration of the Russian
early warning system. Only two to four of the nine high-elliptical satellites that Russia had in orbit
in 1995 are still functioning today, according to arms control experts, and at least seven hours a
day Russia is blind to possible launches from U.S. missile fields. Just last month, a fire at a ground
control center cut off communications with several military satellites.

Russia built seven satellites to reestablish full coverage but has never launched them, apparently
for lack of money. Likewise, it has struggled to rebuild its ground-based radar network since
losing some facilities to newly independent countries in the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The route chosen by Clinton and Yeltsin was to share what information already exists. The
decision to build a Joint Data Exchange Center would create the first permanent U.S.-Russian
military facility, modeled on a temporary joint center established in Colorado to deal with the
Year 2000 computer bug.

According to Pentagon briefing papers, the center would be staffed 24 hours a day by a
detachment of 16 U.S. officers joined by a similar number of Russians. U.S. and Russian officers
would sit back to back, each with computers linked to their respective early warning
headquarters. Although they would not receive raw data, they would have access to information
processed in less than a minute that would show generic missile type, launch location and time,
and launch path, impact area and time if known.

Officials picked a site for the facility and even designed a layout that would include a fitness
center, with showers and steam room. But today the building sits empty and unrenovated in a
leafy residential neighborhood in the Babushkin area of Moscow, some of its windows boarded up
or cracked, its walls marked with graffiti. Instead of being in its operational test phase, as
planned for this month on the way to a September opening, it serves mostly as a clandestine
hangout for young beer drinkers.

"It's basically come to a halt," said a senior U.S. official who asked not to be identified. "It's tough
doing business in Russia. We're not the only group to find that out. . . . Nothing is easy in Russia."

Bruce Blair, president of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, attributed the
impasse to deepening Russian suspicion of the United States, particularly since Kosovo.

"It's a psychological thing," he said. "It's hard to believe these petty little disputes over things
like liability would prevent an important project from being completed if it were deemed
important by the Russians. So it shows that they've basically turned their backs on the
Americans."

Still, even U.S. officials involved are careful to acknowledge that their side bears some blame.
The Clinton administration did not make it a consistent high priority; nor has the Bush
administration. And the Russians say they are simply waiting for the Americans to finish their
review and return to the table.

--------------------

Center Opening May Be Delayed

--------------------
By PAULINE JELINEK

Associated Press Writer

September 5 2001, 2:10 AM PDT

WASHINGTON -- Already three years on the drawing board, a U.S.-Russian center aimed at
avoiding accidental missile launches won't open for at least another year, a Pentagon official said
Wednesday.

Plans to convert a building on the outskirts of Moscow into a joint early warning center are hung
up on Russia's insistence the United States pay taxes on the equipment it takes into the country
and accept liability for the construction, said Philip Jamison, deputy director of the Defense
Department office on international security.

"It essentially boils down to diplomatic issues," he told a seminar at the Cato Institute. Jamison
said the center could be open for testing at the end of 2002 if those matters can be resolved
within the next two months.

Though the issues seem small in relation to the hoped-for benefits of the center -- that is, to
prevent accidental nuclear catastrophe -- U.S. officials have said they don't want to set a
precedent on taxes and other matters that could create problems elsewhere.

When plans for the center were announced in September 1998, then-President Clinton said it was
aimed at averting "nuclear war by mistake." Officials said that because Russia doesn't have
money to properly maintain its warning system, it could mistakenly think the United States had
launched a nuclear missile -- and retaliate.

In 1995, Russia's military briefly mistook a scientific rocket from Norway for a U.S.
intercontinental ballistic missile. Officials say Moscow's constellation of warning satellites has
seriously decayed since then, with some out of orbit and believed not functioning.

The new center is to be staffed jointly by three dozen U.S. and Russian officers. The system
planned at the center would collect information from the warning systems of each country and
share it, reporting such things as time and location of any missile launches, the missile type,
direction it was heading and place it would hit.
The center was to open months ago. Besides the tax and liability problems, the project lost
momentum late last year as Clinton was leaving office and early this year as President Bush was
just coming in and reviewing U.S. policy toward Moscow.

Another panelist, Geoffrey E. Forden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued the center
won't work anyway because Russian officers won't have confidence in it. In times of tensions
between the two countries, Forden said, Moscow will not rely on information received from the
United States.

Washington should help Russia repair its own warning system instead, he said.

The United States and Russia have been holding talks focused on the Bush administration's
intention to build a missile defense system.

Russia accepts the inevitability of a U.S. system even as it objects to violations of the 1972 Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

In fact, Russia appears willing to accept limited defenses as part of an agreement that also would
cut U.S. and Russian arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons, said the official, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

The third panelist, Hank Cooper of the private missile defense research group High Frontier,
suggested Washington could win concessions on the system it wants by helping Russian with its
warning system.

"I wouldn't just go off and buy them a warning system," Cooper said. "Our demand ought to be
that we do it in the context of a global defense ... in the context of building a system that we
want."

Copyright 2001 Associated Press

Vremya Novostei

July 5, 2001

[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]

MOSCOW LEFT WITHOUT JDEC


Global peace set for July 4 foiled

By Yuri GOLOTYUK

The Russo-American Joint Data Exchange Centre to monitor missile launches was to be
opened in Moscow on July 4. The initiative was sealed at the top, presidential level and both
Russia and the USA called it within the past year one of the key priorities of strategic stability.
But they preferred not to remember this on July 4. Judging by everything, the creation of the
centre, officially called the Joint Centre for Exchange of Data from Early Warning Systems and
Notifications of Missile Launches, is becoming more and more improbable.

The JDEC idea was unbelievably good even for the benevolent 1990s, when global peace, love
and brotherhood seemed perfectly feasible. To preclude a chance exchange of nuclear missile
strikes, Russia and the USA decided to partially integrate their early warning systems, thus
getting a possibility to monitor missile launches in any part of the world in real time. Other
countries were expected to subsequently join the work of the bilateral centre, so that eventually
everyone would be watching everyone, with missiles not flying anywhere without permission and
peace and tranquillity reining on the earth.

The only trouble is that it took the sides too long to translate the idea, which Boris Yeltsin
advanced in the very first months after he had come to power, into practical agreements. And it
was already too late when presidents Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton signed the JDEC
memorandum at long last on June 4 last year (Point 1 of Article 8 of the memorandum stipulated
that "the JDEC shall commence operations 365 days after this Memorandum enters into force").
In theory, the idea looked as attractive as ever, but the world had changed dramatically - and not
for the better at all.

The last document signed to this effect was the memorandum of understanding, initialled by
Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Brussels on
December 16, 2000. After that, a new administration came to power in the USA and it became
much more difficult for the sides to understand each other. The USA proclaimed the deployment
of an NMD system as an absolute priority of its national security policy. Russia fought hard on the
diplomatic front, but failed and went over from persuasion to threats of building up strategic
arsenals and looking for allies.

On the other hand, the Putin-Clinton memorandum has not expired yet, as it will remain in
force for ten years. Neither did the sides use the possibility to terminate the memorandum by
notifying the other side of such intention six months before withdrawing from the agreement.
However, in the current situation this "global Russo-American strategic initiative" looks as a
monument to lost chance, rather than a living agreement that "gives peace a chance."
Unclassified

Document ID: CEP20030711000006


Version Number: 1
Region: Central Eurasia, The Americas
Sub-Region: North America, Russia
Country: RUSSIA, UNITED STATES
Topic: INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL, MILITARY
Source-Date: 07/10/2003
Russia, US To Launch Early Warning System in 2004
CEP20030711000006 Moscow ITAR-TASS in Russian 0705 GMT 10 Jul 03

[FBIS Translated Text]


Moscow, 10 July: The Russian-American centre for the exchange of data provided by an early warning system
and notification of the launching of ballistic missiles will be commissioned in Moscow at the beginning of
2004. This was reported to the ITAR-TASS correspondent today by the adviser at the Russian Political Studies
Centre, Lt-Gen Vasiliy Lata.
He said that the work on setting up the information networks and communications, the redecoration and
equipment of the premises, is being completed. The expert said the need for the sides to strictly honour
contractual agreements on strategic offensive weapons meant that the work at the centre had to be completed.
"Russia is proposing to expand the "range" of sources supplying information and states receiving the
information," the general said.
It is expected that some 20 officers from the Pentagon will be working at the centre. They will be working five
shifts in a shared data-processing room with Russian experts. "This room will be equipped with computer
complexes to process the incoming information from various systems and departments. There will be a big
display screen there showing the overall situation and a number of special display screens, on which the data on
identified objects in space, ballistic missiles and their specifications, will be indicated.
Vasiliy Lata thinks that "the centre's main task is to prevent the provision of false information warning of a
missile launch (including within the framework of an act of terrorism) and to make a realistic assessment of the
situation which is taking shape regarding missiles and the expanses of space.
[Description of Source: Moscow ITAR-TASS in Russian -- main government information agency]
THIS REPORT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT
PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Unclassified
Global Security Newswire is produced independently for the Nuclear Threat Initiative by National Journal
Group, Inc. Global Security Newswire is published Monday thru Friday by 2 pm and is available exclusively
on the NTI website, www.nti.org.

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

U.S.-Russia: Joint Early Warning Center to Open


Next Year
A joint U.S.-Russian center to provide advance notification of ballistic missile launches is
set to open in Moscow early next year, an adviser at the Russian Political Studies Center
said last week (see GSN, May 23).
The center will be equipped with computer equipment to process, track and display
ballistic missile information, Lt. Gen. Vasiliy Latasaid. Approximately 20 U.S. Defense
Department officers will work at the center alongside Russian experts, according to ITAR-
Tass.
The mission of the center is to prevent false alarms of missile launches and to make a
realistic assessment of the ballistic missile situation in space, according to Lata (ITAR-
Tass, July 10 in FBIS-SOV, July 11).
© Copyright 2003 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for
the Nuclear Threat Initiative by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or
in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of National Journal Group,
Inc. All rights reserved.

Arizona Republic (Phoenix)

April 9, 2006

U.S.-Russian War Center Still Stalled

By Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Nearly six years after the U.S. and Russia agreed to build a joint military center in
Moscow to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war, work on the project has stalled because the
two nations can't agree about taxes and legal liability.

The project announced by President Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2000
was to be completed in 2001. But aside from identifying the site and setting up some
communications cables, no work has been done to make the center a reality.

The United States wants the American contractors building the Moscow-based Joint Data
Exchange Center to be exempt from most Russian taxes and to have as little legal liability as
possible should U.S. or Russian construction workers or others be injured on the job. The
Russians, meanwhile, want to tax the U.S. construction companies and to have the right to sue
the contractors for any negligence that might arise.

At the announcement ceremony almost six years ago, Clinton touted the center as "terribly
important."

"In this new center, Russian and American military officials will be working . . . to monitor missile
warning information. It is a milestone in enhancing strategic stability, and I welcome it," Clinton
said.

Two years later, President Bush and Putin reaffirmed the need for the center. Later, the Russians
said the center would be housed in a former kindergarten in Moscow.

The center was conceived as a place where U.S. and Russian military planners could share early
warning information on missile launches. The idea is that such sharing would reduce the risk that
one side might misinterpret a missile test or space launch from the other as a missile attack,
prompting a retaliatory nuclear strike.

Russia and the United States account for more than 90 percent of the world's atomic bombs.

Russian spokesman Yevgeniy Khorishko confirmed that taxes and legal liability were the major
obstacles thwarting progress on the center.

Negotiations are ongoing with the United States, he said, and "the parties are trying to find
common ground. The parties expect that this center will be online very soon." He declined to
specify a date.

Retired Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an
expert on arms control and nuclear weapons safety, said it should be a top priority for Bush and
Putin "to break through the bureaucratic roadblocks that have . . . kept the center from getting
up and running."

Nunn is co-chairman of the nonpartisan Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization aimed at


reducing the threat of nuclear war.

The majority of U.S. funds to construct the $7 million facility can't be spent, Congress directed in
2002, until both sides sign an agreement "exempting the United States and any United States
person from Russian taxes, and from liability under Russian laws, with respect to activities
associated with the Joint Data Exchange Center."

Legal liability concerns also have slowed work on a U.S. effort to help Russia dispose of excess
plutonium, an ingredient in nuclear weapons, despite six years of negotiations.

The Russian view has been that American contractors involved in plutonium disposal should be
held responsible for any accident. A plutonium accident could cause serious damage to Russian
citizens, property and the environment.

Disposing of the Russian plutonium is a priority for the United States because of concern that
terrorists might try to steal some. It takes only 17.5 pounds of it to make an atomic bomb, and
Russia and United States each has more than 37.4 tons of surplus plutonium.

A senior Energy Department official, Linton Brooks, chief of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, told Congress last month that both sides were close to reaching a compromise
agreement on liability for the plutonium project.

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